How to Battle Bugs in an 'Off-Kilter' Year

In this weekly Pest Watch update, learn why diligent scouting is especially important this year

Insect populations started well ahead of schedule this spring, says Ron Hammond, Extension entomologist with The Ohio State University. That trend continues into June.

"The insects are still way ahead of schedule," he says. "The corn rootworm, for example — you’d normally be seeing adults in early July, but we’re getting all of those adults starting to emerge right now. Everything is still very different than normal."

This "off kilter" year makes it hard to speculate about what problems insects might cause later in the season, Hammond says. That makes diligent scouting efforts all the more important this year, he says.

"We are recommending that growers really have to be extra careful with their monitoring and their scouting because to be honest, we’re really not sure how some of these things are going to play out," he says.

Hear what else Hammond has to say about how the season is progressing: